'The Good Wife': Election Night Drama, Guest-Starring Fred Thompson

Alicia learns the truth about her husband and her legal investigator—and shows some rarely-seen emotion

CBS

At last Alicia knows, and had to find out—that her husband and legal investigator Kalinda were briefly an item in the mist-shrouded past—on election eve. Peter is back in business, reelected State's Attorney, possibly because Alicia finally consented to a last-minute TV interview in which she declared that she'd forgiven her husband for past indiscretions, loved her new career, and trusted her children to be wise and understanding of two parents who loved them. Then comes the unwelcome news, and Alicia's façade of imperturbability is shattered before our eyes. (Alicia squeezes out a tear.)

Will this lead to more dramatic rupture in the Florrick household? Will Alicia and Kalinda be able to work comfortably together in the future? Wait and see.

In the meantime Lockhart & Gardner, with Alicia in the lead, seems on the verge of winning an $80 million settlement on behalf of a Venezuelan oil company apparently cheated by an international oil behemoth, which exploited a paper technicality that proves to be a mistranslation from Spanish to English. Interfering in the litigation is the lower half (fully-clothed) of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who rewrites Venezuelan law hourly on behalf of, I guess, the corrupt oil magnate. Also in the stew is one-time presidential candidate and long-time TV prosecutor Fred Thompson, who enters the suit as a bad guy, then reverses his field, and finally abandons the suit with an understandable air of befuddlement. No doubt Donald Trump is next.

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C. Michael Curtis has been an editor at The Atlantic since 1963. Under his direction, the magazine has won numerous fiction prizes, including the National Magazine Award for fiction.